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Opt-Out Day at airports appears to be a flop

Think about it. Mass opt-outs for being scanned by TSA would mean long waits on a busy travel day plus by doing so you are demanding to be groped. It’s not surprising that not many are doing it.

The increased militarization of US society is troubling. We may have scanners everywhere soon. And to what purpose? The fight against this will be long and hard.

I favor the Israeli approach. Their airport security staff are college-educated and trained to spot nervous or suspicious passengers. They do not use scanners and seldom do pat-downs. They have a smart, proactive, effective approach to security, and most of the work is done before someone gets to the airport. That’s what we need here too.

He said that several House staffers were uncomfortable and averted their eyes when the TSA demonstrated an enhanced pat-down in the room of 200 people.

“The dumbest part: they did two pat-down demonstrations – male on male, and female on female,” the House staffer said. And they used a young female TSA volunteer “and in front of a room of 200 people, they touched her breasts and her buttocks. People were averting their eyes. The TSA was trying to demonstrate ‘this is not so bad,’ but it made people so uncomfortable to watch, that people were averting their eyes.”

Imagine what security everywhere will be like in five years if We The People don’t draw the line now.